Forbidden Love
by Scarlet Shinigami
Summary: Shinigami like Joey Wheeler have always kept their existence hidden, until now.
1. Chapter 1

I've always thought Earth was weird. Here you can do whatever you want, and people don't judge you as much as in the underworld. I like it here on Earth.

"Joey, Joey! Dude, are you daydreaming again?"

I bring myself back to reality and look up at Tristan, who was standing in front of my desk. Great, I'm at school. The one thing I hate about Earth.

"Joey, are you even alive?"

Well, technically I'm not. But I can't tell him that.

"Yeah, I'm alive."

"It's lunch time and we're going to be at the end of the line because you were daydreaming again!"

"Sorry."

I'll tell you one thing - the best thing about Earth is the food! In the underworld most people just eat chicken. Day after day of nothing but chicken, and if you're lucky you get bacon. But usually a bunch of high class shinigami eat it all. At least we have it better than the fallen angels. I seriously feel bad for them; the fallen angels only eat a few times a month. I guess they deserve it since they betrayed the angels in heaven, but haven't the angels heard of second chances?

"Joey, hurry up and get your damn food so I can get mine!" yells Tristan.

When did I get in the lunch line? I look at the lunch lady, who hands me a tray of delicious Earth food, and then I wait for Tristan.

"What's wrong, Joey?" he asks once he receives his own tray.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been daydreaming a lot lately and today we're the last ones in the lunch line. We're always first! So, what's going on, Joey?"

"I've just been thinking a lot lately."

"Since when do you think?"

"Hey! I think a lot!"

"Seriously, Joey. You OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Okay, so maybe I'm not actually "OK." You know how the shinigami take a person's soul to heaven or the underworld, right? The way we do this is by getting a list of names every week, which is sent to us by the ruler of the underworld: Lord Zigfried von Schroeder. Well, the list I got this week has a bunch of people who die on the same day near the same time. Usually someone would inform us if there was going to be some kind of disaster, but nothing's been said.

"What took you guys so long to get here?" asks Tea, who had just walked up to me and Tristan.

"Nothing important," I answer.

After a few minutes of eating in silence, I ask, "Where's Yugi?"

"Kaiba took him off somewhere to duel again," Tea says.

Kaiba never gives up. Oh well.

"Hey, the bell is about to ring," Tea informs us, "so we should start walking to class."

I throw my tray away and we all start walking to class, fairly bored at the prospect of another lesson.

Then, all of a sudden, fear and panic wash over me.

All the windows break, glass shattering to the ground. People start screaming for help, running around like headless chickens. Winged creatures fly off with people in hand or talon, and I just stand there. Frozen.

The shinigami are attacking humans.

This paradise is being destroyed.


	2. Chapter 2

What's going on, where's Mokuba?

"Big brother? Seto? Wake up, you need to wake up!"

That voice… it's Mokuba's. He's here with me.

"Mokuba?" I say softly.

"Shhhh. They're coming."

"Who?"

"Shhh..."

* * *

I can't believe what they're doing. They're making humans slaves and even killing them for entertainment! How could someone do something like that? It's sickening! The worst is when they try to justify it all, claiming that all humans are just going to die anyways, with all their wars and murders, and that they're too stupid to control Earth. Okay, so maybe humans are stupid – many of them fight over the tiniest things and some of them don't have any morals –, but they change and become better people. Humans learn from their mistakes, that doesn't mean that they deserve to be enslaved!

"HUMAN AUCTION TODAY AT SUNDOWN!" yells the town crier.

I'm going to that auction. Hopefully I'll find everyone. I need to make sure they're with me; I can't even imagine what they're suffering right now.

* * *

I don't know what they did to me. My body won't cooperate with me. The world moves so fast and I'm in slow motion.

"Seto, do you feel better?" Mokuba asks.

I simply nod. It's easier than talking.

I look around me; we're in a disgusting jail cell. It stinks and there are blood stains on the walls and floors. The fact that I'm here makes me feel weak – I can't even protect Mokuba.

I hear footsteps coming closer and closer. The cell door slams open and this hideous creature walks in.

* * *

I managed to get Yugi and Tea at least. There's only two more people left, hopefully one of them is Tristan.

"THESE LAST TWO PEOPLE ARE SIBLINGS, SO SINCE THIS IS OUR LAST AUCTION OF THE DAY IF YOU BUY THE OLDER BOY YOU GET THE YOUNGER ONE FOR FREE!"

For a second I couldn't believe my eyes. It's Kaiba and Mokuba up there. Kaiba looks pathetic; he looks pale, like he's about to pass out any second. It's hard to believe that's Kaiba.

No one even bothers to bid; Kaiba looks too weak. It's not odd for no one to bid for him, so I do.


	3. Chapter 3

I went to the back of the auction stage to collect my friends and Kaiba; I quickly escaped and started walking towards my house which is also down here in the underworld. I hope they don't mind staying down here, the underworld isn't exactly filled with trees and flowers down here everything is dead.

"Joey, where are we going?" asked Yugi, distracting me from my thoughts. He was currently helping Tea hold Kaiba up.

"Don't talk to me right now," I responded. I can't be seen being nice to them; down here, humans are slaves. You scream and beat them, not have nice conversations with them full of "how do you do's" and "good day's."

Eventually, I saw the gate of my house in the underworld. I walked faster and everyone matched my pace, though Yugi and Tea had a little trouble keeping up with Kaiba since Kaiba couldn't walk on his own Yugi and Tea had to carry him.

I slid open the dark black gate and unlocked the door to let everyone inside my house, cringing a little when I see how miserable and in pain they all look. All because of my kind…

I hadn't even realized it before, but I was scared before then. Scared that a fellow shinigami would come up to us and stop us, maybe even hurt or kill them, or reveal that I'm one of their kind as well… When everyone came in the house, though, I felt relieved, since here we're safe. At least, for now we are.

I closed all the curtains and quickly went to the kitchen to get everyone something to eat and drink. Fortunately, it was right next to the living room so I wouldn't have to walk far – I'm exhausted after dealing with all of this crap.

Tea and Yugi laid Kaiba on the couch and took a seat next to him, looking around my house and trying to absorb their current situation. I'm sure it must be a lot to take in… I wonder if they even realize they're in the underworld. I mean they could've just assumed that the shinigami burned everything down or something who knows what they're thinking, they at least seen something when they were being transported to the underworld but their captors could've just knocked them out to make it easier to bring them down here.

"Joey!"

I stopped pouring the drinks and turned around to see Mokuba crying next to his brother.

"He's bleeding!"

I put the glass I was holding down and ran upstairs to find a first-aid kit while Tea used a shirt that was on the couch and applied pressure to the wound. I opened the closet door, which was to the right of the stairs, and grabbed the first-aid supplies that were on the top shelf and ran back down. Mokuba was talking to Kaiba, making sure he stayed awake and Yugi was trying not to pass out from seeing all the blood. Tea took the blood soaked shirt off and I saw the wound. It was a very deep cut it must have reopened somehow, because he didn't have it before. He's going to need stitches… I wish we could go to the hospital, but we can't because, according to _everyone_ in the underworld, humans aren't people so they don't need a doctor. They're idiots – even _animals_ go to a hospital for devil's sake!

"Does it hurt?" I asked while I cleaned my hands with alcohol, soon getting a needle and some thread out and sterilizing them as well. I was in a gang before, and applying stitches is one of the many things I learned there. Who knew that would come in handy so many years later?

"It feels numb," said Kaiba. He didn't look at me, he just kept looking at Mokuba.

Once I got everything ready, I said to him, "This will hurt like hell."

"I'm not going to ask what you're going to do, but, whatever it is, you better do it right and fast."

"Yugi, Tea, hold him down."

They complied and held Kaiba down. I really wish Mokuba wasn't there, but no matter what I told him he wasn't going to leave, so I gave up and started applying the stitches as fast as I could. Kaiba kept screaming and howling with pain, so Mokuba put a cloth in his mouth to block it out. I could tell he was suffering while watching this… why did he stay to watch? No matter; I was almost done anyways.

"Yugi, go get some towels," I ordered as I tied up the last stitch. "If you go up the stairs and open the closet on the right, they should be on the middle shelf."

Yugi ran up the stairs and came back down as soon as I finished.

Ugh… Everything hurts! What the hell happened?

"Kaiba, you up yet?" a familiar, annoying voice reached my ears. I couldn't recognize it, though…

"Where's my coffee!" I snapped at him anyways. I vaguely remembered wanting coffee before blacking out.

"I'm not your maid! Make your own coffee!"

I finally looked up, the pain surging as I did so, and saw a blond dog standing beside me.

"How cute, the mutt came to wake up his master."

"I'm not a dog, Kaiba!" he replied with a glare. "I came to give you some water and painkillers."

"Put it in my mouth," I said, opening my mouth wide.

"Go fuck yourself."

"I'd rather fuck you," I replied, smiling.

"That's not going to happen. By the way, don't I deserve a thank you?"

"Why?" I don't remember him doing anything for me.

"I saved your life! You would've bled to death if I hadn't sewn you up."

I froze up after hearing him. "… That wasn't a dream?"

"No, it wasn't."

"… I'm going to need those painkillers," I told him, holding out my hand.

"Here," said Joey, handing me a pill. I put it in my mouth and swallowed it down with the water he gave me with some difficulty, since it seemed like my throat was as dry as sandpaper.

"Be careful not to rip out your stitches," said Joey.

"Oh, really?" I started sarcastically. "I was thinking of ripping them so I could go through the fun experience of being sewn back together again."

"Fine, rip them out. But when I stitch you back up, don't scream like a little girl like you did yesterday."

"Whatever."

"Seto!"

"Mokuba, are you ok? Has the mutt been taking care of you?"

"_Joey_ has taken good care of me," Mokuba said with just a hint of disapproval. He soon brightened as he asked enthusiastically, "Are you hungry? I can make you a sandwich!"

"A sandwich is the only thing you _can_ make," I told him. When he frowned sadly, though, I sighed and relented. "Go make me a sandwich, then."

Mokuba nodded and ran into the kitchen, trying to find where the bread and lunchmeat was.

"What's going on here?" I whispered to Joey.

"It's complicated, I only know part of the story," whispered Joey back.

"What are those bird people?"

"They're called shinigami."

"Grim reapers?"

"Yes."

"We're surrounded by them, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"What else do you know?"

"Um... They don't like humans."

"No shit, Sherlock!" I almost yelled, finding it a little odd that he said "humans" instead of "us," or something of the like. "There's obviously something you don't want me to know."

"Here you go, Seto!" Mokuba cheerily interrupted, walking up to me and handing me a turkey sandwich.

"Thanks." I take the sandwich from him, but look at Joey out of the corner of my eye. He looked a little shady to me…

"So, I guess we're going to be staying here for a while," said Mokuba brightly.

"Kaiba is going to have to learn to do things for himself," Joey said with a pointed look at me.

"I can do stuff," I grumbled.

What? I'm not lying!

"You guys can go to sleep if you want," he then told us, shrugging. "It's like, seven something in the morning and everyone else is asleep. I'm going to go do... Something."

Well, _that_ wasn't suspicious at all. He's a terrible liar.

How am I going to tell them that I'm a shinigami? That I'm part of a species that's beaten, killed, abused, and devil-knows-what-else to humans? I have to tell them soon, because they're bound to find out eventually and it'd be better if they heard it from me instead of someone or some_thing_ else.

… I just hope they don't hate me for what I am.


	4. Chapter 4

It's so disgusting, the way people cheer on murder. Each one of those murderers were once human, and now they proudly yell that they hate humans and that those humans have minds the size of maggots. Ugh, they're all such disgusting monsters; I can't believe I agreed to become one of them.

When I became a shinigami, it didn't mean you where evil – it meant that you sent souls to the place they are meant to go. People try to drag you into their world of evil; I've been told so many times, "Joey, let's go see the next hanging! Maybe they'll do something to some hot chick! It'll be fun!" Sometimes I wish I could go back and just change the way things turned out. I wish I could go back and never become a shinigami in the first place.

(2 years ago)

Now what?! I'm broke, and now I'm jobless. How the hell am I suppose to pay this month's rent!? I'm getting kicked out this month for sure, and it's all because of those stupid gang members! If they hadn't marched in the restaurant when I was working, wanting to pick a fight, nothing would've happened! Why did I get fired anyway, I was just defending myself!

This is the worst day of my life! You know what, I'm going for a walk, and then I'm going to Yugi's place and then I'll come back home and start looking for another job. I can't just sit here and whine all day; I'm having fun.

Stupid boss, stupid punks, they ruined my day! Now I can't stop thinking about the fact that I'm going to be homeless at the end of the month, and that I lost such a good job – the hours were great and so was the pay! The worst thing of all is that I don't know where the hell I am! I've been walking around for about two hours and I don't even know if I'm still in Domino! Why can't this all be a dream? I'll wake up and my life is back to normal.

I look around and I see tree swings and benches just across the street. I can finally sit down somewhere! I quickly run across the street, checking both ways first, of course (the last thing I needed was to get run over). I find a black bench next to a streetlight and sit down. I'll need directions to get back home, but this place is a ghost town. I shiver; even the word "ghost" gives me goose bumps, especially out here. It's so dark, and the sky is cloudy. Perfect ghost weather.

I need to find someone and ask for some directions. I think I see a fast food place, and it's only a bit away. I'll just rest here for a minute, and once I don't feel as tired I'll go.I felt my eyes slowly close, and even though I knew I should try to stay awake, I thought to myself,

What can be worse than what will already happen?

It did get worse and in the end I never did get home. Well, at least not alive.

"Joey, are you still awake?"

I quickly sat up at the sound of Yugi's voice.

"Yugi, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Sorry," he said.

I laugh. Yugi looks absolutely ridiculous wearing a pair of shorts that are so big he has to hold them up and a shirt that looks like a dress on him. We really need to get him some clothes; mine are way too big for him!

"You don't have to laugh at me, I know I look weird!" said Yugi.

"We'll see what we can do about the clothes in the morning," I tell him, trying to control my laughter. "So, what did you need, anyway? You must've come in my room for something."

"I just wanted to know where the bathroom was."

"It's room next to this one."

"Oh, thanks… Um, Joey, why are you still up?"

"Can't sleep."

"You should try; it's been a long day."

"I'll try, but I doubt I'll sleep at all tonight."

"Joey, I have to ask you something important."

I have a feeling he's going to ask me about what's going on around here, based on the seriousness in his face and tone. But I'm reallynot ready to answer a question like that right now…

"Yugi, can you just ask me in the morning?"

"You know something, don't you."

Figures he'd notice. "I know a lot," I say honestly, ducking my head a little so that I didn't have to look at him. "But I can't say anything right know."

"Joey, I'm your friend! You can trust me! I just want to know what's going on, I want to know what we're up against. I want know what exactly those evil bird things are!"

I stare at him, unblinking. He has a point, about being friends, and he has a right to know what's happening to him, but… Could he handle the answer? If he knew I was an evil creature, would he still treat me as a friend? Or as an enemy?


End file.
